A Portsmouth fan’s view of Gary Roberts

Wigan Athletic have announced the signing of 33-year-old midfielder Gary Roberts from Portsmouth on a one-year contract. Roberts had been released by Pompey after completing two years of a three-year deal.

Roberts has played under Paul Cook’s management at Accrington, Chesterfield and Portsmouth. On announcing the signing Cook commented: ‘Gary is a player I trust and who has proven himself at this level. He will make a significant contribution and I’m delighted to have him on board.’

Gareth Roberts was born in Chester, joining Liverpool’s academy but being released at the age of 17. He went on to play youth football at Bala Town and Denbigh Town before briefly playing for Rhyl to move on to Bangor City as a 19-year-old where he played 22 games, scoring one goal, in the 2003-04 season. Roberts went on to play for his fifth club in Wales the following season, when he made 22 appearances for Welshpool Town scoring 9 goals.

At the age of 21 Roberts signed for Accrington Stanley where he made 66 appearances, scoring 22 goals. In October 2006, he went on loan to Ipswich Town, signing permanently for the Tractor Boys in January 2007. He went on to make 40 appearances for Ipswich in almost two seasons, scoring 4 goals. He had also played for Crewe Alexandra on a month’s loan in February 2008.

In summer 2008, Huddersfield Town, then in League 1, paid Ipswich £250,000 for Roberts. In his first season he went on to score 11 goals, winning the Huddersfield awards for best goal of the season, Player’ Player of the Season and Fans’ Player of the Season. Over his four seasons Roberts went on to make 145 league starts, with 17 appearances off the bench, scoring 31 goals.

In summer 2012 Roberts made a parallel move to Swindon Town, where he made 39 league appearances, scoring 4 goals. In June 2013 Paul Cook signed him for Chesterfield where he was to spend two seasons, making 69 starts with 5 appearances as a substitute, scoring 17 goals. When Cook went to Portsmouth in summer 2015, Roberts was to follow. He went on to make 58 league starts, 16 appearances as a substitute, scoring 17 goals over two seasons.

Roberts has won four promotions in his career and was League Two Player of The Year in 2013-2014.

In order to learn more about Roberts’ time at Portsmouth we contacted Jim Bonner(@FrattonFaithful) of the Fratton Faithful fan site.

Here’s over to Jim:

Gary Roberts going to Wigan after being released from Pompey is the most predictable deal of the summer. He has always been a favourite with Paul Cook so it’s no surprise that the pair have been reunited after Kenny Jackett deemed him surplus to requirements and wanted to remove him from the bill.

Roberts can play on either wing or behind the striker and on his day he can be a major influence on a match as he clearly has ability and scored some very important goals duringhis two-year spell at Portsmouth. However, his days are now few and far between as his 33-year-old legs have gone and he often becomes a passenger in matches because of it.

Do not be surprised to see Cook select Roberts ahead of other, more logical choices for the Wigan starting eleven as our ex-manager probably values him too highly but he will be fondly remembered at Fratton Park for the most part and may well chip in with an important goal or two for his new club. It’s just a question of whether those goals will be worth the time he spends on the pitch being completely ineffective.